


Stop the World

by decrescendo



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: After Eleven | Jane Hopper Closes the Gate, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Good Parent Jim "Chief" Hopper, Hurt/Comfort, Parental Jim "Chief" Hopper, Post-Season/Series 02, Protective Jim "Chief" Hopper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 16:04:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18391745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decrescendo/pseuds/decrescendo
Summary: Hopper and Eleven come home.





	Stop the World

Vaguely, in the background, Hopper was aware that the reddish glow from the gate had vanished and those terrifying demon dogs were falling down into the endless dark below, but none of those things seemed important. The only thing that mattered was El, lying motionless on the floor of the lift, blood caked below her nose and ears, El, who looked suddenly so much smaller than she had been, smaller even than when she had followed him out of the woods, as small as Sara had looked on that very last day in the hospital with the doctors and tubes and machines all around her. Though just moments before the adrenaline had been pumping through his veins as he fired at demons, Hopper felt suddenly powerless.

“El,” he tried to say, but no sound came out. He reached for her desperately, seeking her wrist for a pulse, and then she stirred, and he heard the tiniest whimper from her, and then she was in his arms and he was sure he had never held anyone so tightly. He pressed his hand to the back of her head, feeling for her soft, familiar curls, and instead finding her head stiff with that gel that definitely hadn’t come from her aunt, which meant she’d been somewhere else, too, that she hadn’t told him about, but that didn’t _matter_ , none of it did, because she was trembling in his arms and clutching at his jacket and sobbing into his neck and all of those things meant that she was alive.

“You did good, kid,” he whispered, hardly managing to force the words out, throat tight with tears. “You did so good.”

—

El was asleep in his arms long before they reached the car. He laid her down carefully in the backseat and it occurred to him that he wouldn’t be able to buckle the seatbelt around her like this. Then he felt a humorless laugh force its way from his throat. Driving without a seatbelt was so low on the list of ways this child had been endangered that it did not even register. For a moment he just leaned against the open door, gazing down at her tiny, sleeping form. He thought suddenly that he might cry again. Then he shook himself and got into the car and started driving away from Hawkins lab for, he hoped, the very last time. He glanced back at her every few seconds, as if she might disappear on him. As if even here, even now, the black hole might still get her.

He didn’t want to go back to the Byers’ house. He wanted nothing in the world but to take El back to the cabin and put her to bed and sit on the floor of her bedroom all night to watch over her, just the two of them, quiet and isolated and safe. But he owed it to Joyce to see that she and her boys were okay and, as much as he hated to admit it, and he owed it to Mike not to keep El from him any longer. And he owed it to El to let her wake up surrounded by the people who loved her, all of them, not just himself.

She was still sleeping as he pulled up to the Byers’ house but stirred a bit when he turned off the engine. He went around to the back and opened her door, and reached out to smooth his hand across her hair. “El,” he said softly, “we’re at Joyce’s.” She leaned into his touch and her eyes fluttered open. “I can carry you again,” he continued, “but I need you to help me out a bit. Can you sit up?”

She nodded sleepily and then struggled upright, leaning heavily on the hand Hopper placed under her shoulder to help lift her. She sat there a moment, staring ahead through the windshield to the Byers’ house, ignoring the arms that Hopper held out to her. Finally she said, “I can walk.”

Hopper was skeptical. Just sitting up had exhausted her; she was pale and shaking and a bit out of breath. But she seemed determined, and, he reflected with no small pride, the world had not yet found something that this girl could not accomplish if she really wanted to. So he just said, “Okay,” and held out a hand to help her down from the car on her own two feet.

She stumbled a few times as they made their way with agonizing slowness to the front door, but each time, she only paused a moment and then kept moving. When they were a few yards away, the door was flung open, and Hopper caught a brief glimpse of Mike illuminated almost eerily by the light behind him in the doorway before he rushed out into the yard.

“Careful,” Hopper warned, suspecting that Mike would crash into El with unbridled enthusiasm, but Mike had beaten him to it: sensing her exhaustion, he slowed down before he reached her and paused in front of her a moment, regarding her with undisguised wonder.

“You did it,” he breathed.

The corners of El’s mouth twitched up in the tiniest approximation of a smile. “Yes.”

And then he hugged her, taking her into his arms with a gentleness that Hopper would never have expected from the boy. He glanced up from them back to the doorway, where the others were crowded, watching. He caught Joyce’s soft, watery smile. He was—again—dangerously close to tears.

“Come on,” he said gruffly, putting a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Inside.”

—

The cabin was a mess. He’d forgotten, somehow, that Joyce had used it the day before to burn the monster out of Will. After a sleepless night at her house—the two of them had stayed up talking quietly in the kitchen long after all the kids had fallen asleep scattered across various rooms—he had looked forward to returning to the familiar rooms he’d come to regard as home. He had wanted things to be normal, or as normal as they could be. But he certainly had no energy for cleaning right now.

Neither did El. She’d stayed awake as long as possible last night listening to the boys talk about everything that had happened while she’d been away, but she hardly made it an hour before dropping to sleep against Mike’s shoulder. And she had fallen asleep again in the car on the way home that morning, slumped against the window.

Now she looked around the cabin, wide-eyed, and Hopper remembered suddenly that a lot of this mess had come from her, from their fight. It seemed impossible that that could have been just days ago. A lifetime had passed, it seemed, but were still things they had to talk about: where she’d gone, for instance, and that she wasn’t to leave the cabin like that again under any circumstances.

Not now, though. Now Hopper just said, “Bed,” and with a hand on her back—to steady her, he told himself, though he knew it was as much for his own benefit—he guided her through the mess to her room. El didn’t protest, just silently followed his lead. She was asleep again before he’d even pulled the covers over her.

—

El slept all day. It didn’t surprise him—really, he was surprised she’d managed a single minute of wakefulness since closing the gate—but still, it was strange, having the cabin to himself. He’d grown used to her presence, which was always large, quiet as she was; something about her demanded to be noticed. Perhaps it was just her craving for attention, so strong after so much neglect that he could always feel its magnetic pull even when she said nothing.

He wanted to sleep, too—he’d been up all night, and only managed a few scattered minutes the night before that at the hospital—but the moment he lay down he knew it was a lost cause. The adrenaline crash hadn’t come; instead, it had only fizzled out into a lower, steady thrum of energy. That he couldn’t shake the feeling of needing to be on guard certainly didn’t help.

So he worked instead. All day while El slept on he set about cleaning up the cabin, moving the furniture back to its rightful places, repairing what he could of the damage from their fight. There was nothing he could do that day about the windows, so he just draped some tarps over them and built a fire to fight back against the cold.

She emerged around six, just as he was beginning to contemplate dinner. Her hair was a wreck, parts of it still crusted with gel and parts beginning to strive again for their natural curl. She looked pale and exhausted, still, but better, and Hoper could not help but smile at her from where he sat on the couch.

“How’re you feeling?” He asked, and she shrugged as she sat down next to him, pulling up her feet so that she was curled into a ball, with her chin resting on her knees. “A little better?” After a moment’s consideration, she nodded. “You hungry?” She shrugged again. “You should eat,” he said decisively, hoping she wouldn’t argue. She’d refused food at Joyce’s house, and he had no idea when she’d last eaten before that. “I’ll make you some Eggos, how’s that sound?”

With an almost imperceptible smile, she nodded, and, overtaken by a stab of affection, he reached over and ruffled her hair before standing to go to the kitchen. He was rewarded with an exhausted approximation of a grin.

She seemed to be fighting sleep as he heated the waffles, repeatedly shaking her head as it began droop. He heated up a TV dinner for himself. He knew he should make her eat one, too—protein and vegetables would certainly be more important to her recovery than sugary carbs—but at the moment he couldn’t bring himself to give her anything but exactly what she wanted.

There was one thing, though, that he knew he had to address, and he thought it best to do it now, before either of them had time to settle back into their old routine and let the issue be forgotten with time. So when he returned to the couch with their dinners, he only let her take a few bites in silence before he began, somewhat hesitantly, “We need to talk about what happened.”

She stopped chewing for a moment and then swallowed audibly, looking intently down at her plate.

“El,” he began, and then stopped, aware that an edge of frustration had already crept into his voice. He tried to soften his tone. “Look, I meant it yesterday—I’m not mad, okay? You’re not in trouble. But I need to know where else you went.”

For a long time she was silent, staring down at her half-eaten Eggs, and he thought he’d have to prompt her again. Finally, though, she said, so softly he could hardly hear her, “Chicago.”

He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it hadn’t been that. “You went to _Chicago_?” She refused to look at him. He was staring at her in a way that he usually tried actively to avoid—she’d had enough of that kind of negative scrutiny in her life—but he couldn’t help it. Too long passed before he could trust himself to speak calmly. “Okay,” he said, as much to himself as to her. “Okay. Why did you go to Chicago?” And then he followed it immediately with what he realized was the bigger mystery. “How the hell did you _get_ to Chicago?” _A nice man in a big truck?_ he was tempted to ask, but this didn’t seem like the moment to mock her.

She mumbled something to her knees.

“I can’t hear you,” he said, more sharply than he meant to.

She took a deep breath and looked up at him. “I stole money. From Aunt Becky.”

Any decent parent would address that, Hopper thought. His own shouted words echoed back to him. _You’ve got to understand that there are consequences to your actions_. But he also didn’t want to scare her off from telling him the rest of the story. So he just said, “And what did you do with the money?”

“Bus,” she said in the monosyllabic way of hers, as if that really answered the whole question.

But it answered it enough, anyway, so he moved on to the other point. “Okay. So why’d you go there?”

El blinked and looked away and he realized she was biting her lip and as if struggling not to cry.

“Hey, kid, look at me,” he said quietly. “Hey. Look at me.” She turned her face back to him and his heart ached to see the depth of guilt, grief, and confusion in her eyes. “I’m not mad,” he repeated. “But we need to be honest with each other, yeah? No more lies. So, why did you go to Chicago?”

“To see my sister.”

 _To see Mama_ had surprised him, yesterday, but at least he’d known she had a mother to see. Now he just gaped at her. “Your sister?”

Instead of answering she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled bit of newspaper, which she handed to him without comment. He unfolded it and looked down at the black and white photo of the little girl. So it wasn’t her sister, not really—the girl was dark-skinned, Indian, from London, and the names of the parents listed in the article were unfamiliar. But he thought he understood. “She’s from the lab too?”

“Yes,” said El, and then in a rare moment of unprompted elaboration, “Mama showed me.”

He did not question how. “So you, what, you found this girl in that head of yours? And…went to Chicago to meet her?”

She nodded.

“And then what? You found her?”

El looked away again. “Yes.”

“And?” he prompted, trying not to get impatient with her. “She gave you those clothes then?”

El nodded. “She was nice,” she said with a sad smile.

Hopper regarded her silently for awhile and then looked away himself. He’d convinced himself last night, when she’d said tearfully that she should never have left, that it was because she’d realized her home was with him and she wanted to stay. Now it occurred to him that maybe she had just been referring to the way she’d left—secretly, after a fight—and that what she still really wanted was to go and live with her mama, or with this mysterious new sister. Not too long ago the thought would have been a relief—El would have a family, a real one, and he wouldn’t be stuck raising a teenager long-term. Now the thought filled him with a desperate sort of terror. He’d meant what he said: he didn’t want to lose her.

But it wasn’t his choice, not really, so he forced himself to turn back to her and say, “Is that who you want to stay with? Your sister?”

She looked startled by the question, and didn’t answer.

“Or—" he swallowed hard. “Or your mom and aunt?”

A concerned crease appeared between her eyes as she stared at him. And then, abruptly, she stood, letting the plate of eggs slide off her lap and crash to the floor. She all but ran to her room and slammed the door.

Hopper stared after her, frozen to the spot, completely at a loss as to what had prompted such a reaction. He sighed heavily and dragged a hand through his hair in frustration. He felt like he was making progress with her, he really did, but sometimes it felt like he was just groping in the dark when it came to her. Most of the time, if he was honest with himself. He had thought she’d appreciate being asked what she wanted, as much as it pained him, but clearly he’d misstepped somewhere.

He stood and made his way to her bedroom door, and knocked softly. “Hey, kid, can you open the door, please?” he called. She didn’t answer. “Listen, I’m sorry if I said the wrong thing, okay? I just wanted you to know you have a choice.” When she still was silent he sighed and rested his forehead against the door. “Come on, kid. Open up.”

After what felt like forever there was a soft click and the door swung inward, causing him to stumble a bit before he regained his balance. He wasn’t thrilled that she’d used her powers when she was supposed to be recovering, but mostly he was just relieved she wasn’t completely ignoring him. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong, but he found he couldn’t blame her for being angry. He’d messed up so many times recently it was a miracle she’d come back at all.

She was sitting on the floor, leaning against her bed, curled up with her arms wrapped around her legs and her head turned to the side so that her cheek rested against her knees. He was alarmed to see tears on her face, which she hurriedly wiped away as he came in. He sat down carefully next to her.

“What’s going on, huh?” he asked quietly.

She sniffled and wiped again at the tears that were still flowing. “I thought you were happy,” she whispered.

“What are you talking about?”

“That I came home. I thought—“

He turned more toward her, draped his arm across the bed behind her. “Of course I’m glad you came home. Where’s this coming from?”

She looked confused. “But you don’t want me to stay.”

“What? Of course I do,” he said. How could she not _know_ that? How could she, smart as she was, not see how fondly he could not help but look at her, how much it hurt him even to think about her leaving?

“Friends don’t lie,” she reminded him tearfully.

And then he realized suddenly what this was about and felt tears begin to prickle at the corner of his eyes. “Hey. Is this because I asked if you wanted to live with your mom or your sister?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded.

He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself. “I didn’t mean I _wanted_ you to live with one of them. Or that those were your only choices. I’m not trying to send you away. I just meant—you should be able to live with your family, if you want to. I just wanted to give you the option.”

She just looked at him for a long while through her red, puffy eyes. Finally she said softly, questioningly, “Aren’t you family?”

He felt the tears begin spill from his own eyes. “Oh,” he whispered, “oh, El,” and then it was a moment before he could speak around the lump in his throat. “Of course. Of course we’re a family.”

“I want to stay here,” she said.

“Good,” he said gruffly. “Because that’s what I want too.”

The smile she gave him, though watery and a little hesitant, was the most radiant thing he had ever seen. He took his arm from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling her to his side, and pressed a kiss to her hair.

“Home,” she whispered against him.

“Yeah, kid,” he said. “Home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I Melt With You" by Modern English.


End file.
